Cookies

Our website, like millions of others on the World Wide Web, uses small files called ‘cookies’ to help us customise your experience.

What are ‘cookies’?

‘Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Safari) on your computer or mobile phone. They allow websites to store such things as user preferences. You can think of cookies as providing a “memory” for the website, enabling it to recognise a user and respond appropriately. However this cookie does not let us know your name, address, age or any other information that can identify you as a person.

How does the-etc.ac.uk use cookies?

A visit to a page on www.the-etc.ac.uk may generate the following types of cookies:

Site performance cookies

This type of cookie remembers your preferences for tools found on our website, so you don’t have to re-set them each time you visit. An example is remembering the information you put into our forms.

Anonymous analytics cookies

Each time a user visits our website, web analytics software provided by a third party generates a set of anonymous analytics cookies. Again, no personally identifiable information is shared:

  • These cookies can tell us whether or not you have visited the site before.
  • Your browser will tell us if you have these cookies. If you don’t, we generate new ones.
  • This allows us to track how many unique users we have, and how often they visit the site.

Other third party cookies

On some of our pages, third party controls may also set their own anonymous cookies, for the purposes of tracking the success of their application, or customising the application for you. Because of the way cookies work, we cannot access these cookies, nor can the third parties access the data in cookies used by our website.

Cookies on this site

We use the following cookies on this website:

Cookie NameExpiration TimeDescription
PHPSESSIDAfter session endsA typical PHP session used throughout the website for user registration/log in.

Google Analytics

Cookie NameExpiration TimeDescription
_ga2 yearsUsed to distinguish users.
_gid24 hoursUsed to distinguish users.
_ga_<container-id>2 yearsUsed to persist session state.
For more information on cookies created by Google Analytics, click here.

Tawk.to (If Live Chat is enabled)

Cookie NameExpiration TimeProvider
__tawkuuid6 monthsTawk.to
__cfduid30 daysTawk.to
_gat_gtag_*SessionTawk.to
_gid1 dayTawk.to
_gaSessionTawk.to
TawkConnectionTimeSessionTawk.to
For more information on cookies created by Tawk.to, click here.


How to turn cookies off?

It is usually possible to stop your browser accepting cookies, or to stop it accepting cookies from a particular website. All modern browsers allow you to change your cookie settings. These settings will typically be found in the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu of your browser. In order to understand these settings, the following links may be helpful, otherwise you should use the ‘Help’ option in your browser for more details:

Useful links

If you would like to find out more about cookies and their use on the Internet, you may find the following links useful:

For further legal information about privacy issues, you may find these links useful: